Published on July 14, 2010

A grasshopper peers at the lens from its perch in a yellow iris. Photo by Jennifer Hersey Cleveland

HARDWICK — Jennifer Hersey Cleveland worked a few feet away from me for five years.  I knew that she was a skilled editor and writer and that she took and showed off hundreds of fine photographs of her family, particularly her brother’s three children.

I did not realize that she was also a pornographer.  Not at least until I read the title of her first solo show of photographs — “Flower Porn.”

Lest you worry about community morals, be assured that Ms. Cleveland’s tongue was firmly in her cheek when she named this collection of pictures.  The only reason you might hesitate to bring children to see the show is that its location, The Hangman, on Main Street in Hardwick, is a small space crowded with art and framing equipment.

In that small space Ms. Cleveland has hung almost two dozen framed color photographs, each measuring 11 by 16 inches.  The images of flowers fill the entire frame of most of the photos, but unlike the works of Georgia O’Keefe, whose paintings made explicit the sexual nature of flowers, Ms. Cleveland’s photographs concern themselves more with abstract form and color.

An immature Japanese iris that was photographed while being visited by a green insect bears a marvelous resemblance to a swan’s neck and head, with the bug serving as the bird’s eye.

In another startling close-up a bumble bee gathers pollen from a lilac-colored aster.  The contrast between the orange of the bee’s pollen sacks and the pale pastel of the flower is electric.

A pair of photos of peonies demonstrates the range of Ms. Cleveland’s vision.  One photograph concentrates on the flower’s subtle color gradations, which range from a yellow that verges on white, to a deep pink.  The second of the pictures zooms in close enough to reduce the flower to a series of jagged edges, almost like a torn-paper collage.

Despite Ms. Cleveland’s jokey title, the show is largely chaste, with the possible exception of an image of a pair of beetles mating inside an iris.  For

Ms. Cleveland’s lens looks deep into the structure of a tulip. Photo by Jennifer Hersey Cleveland

those who might feel that is a dirty photograph, Ms. Cleveland offers several images where water is the defining feature, including one that depicts a closed tulip.  On each petal a vertical line of water droplets has formed like rhinestones on theatrical costumes.

Several of Ms. Cleveland’s photos were given heavy frames of Barton Mountain pine by Peter May.  All are worth looking at.

They will remain on display for the rest of July.  Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.